Monday, April 22, 2013

Best Military Reading List, Ever


I was surfing around this evening for new and inspiring reading lists on military history/biography books, and after a few queries I ended right back up at one of my favorite military blogs. Author and journalist Tom Ricks has a reading list he posted back in 2012 which he calls his "Best Military Reading List Ever: The ones he came back to read second time."  I didn't remember seeing his list, so I eagerly scrolled through the post.


Oscar Wilde once said that “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” A little strict, I believe. But Wilde hits on a significant point: the best books are the books we do want to read over and over again.  Ricks has a lot of Vietnam on there, a subject that certainly interests him. Colin Powell's memoir is on there (which I've read twice; excellent book), Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command (another excellent book), and a few others. It is not heavy in military classics -- Clausewitz is on there, but nothing else that would probably be considered a "military classic," no Sun Tzu, no Mahan, no Thucydides.  I'm not criticizing  the lack of classics, it's simply an observation.  Overall, it looks like a good list.  I haven't read many of the books that cover the Vietnam war  -- so I can't speak to those -- but some of the others are certainly worth your time. 

His entire list is here.

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